![]() Police escorted us over flaming hills as we tried to return home from backpacking trips. Ours, courtesy of privilege (race, education, a house purchased in the 1990s), are mundane. But when you’re enmeshed, even the troublesome patterns are hard to see. In hindsight, it’s clear that this romance between California and her citizens was fundamentally unstable, built on a lousy foundation and crumbling for years. We propped a bright red surfboard against the living-room wall. Why live anywhere else? My human spouse hung photos of El Capitan in the entrance hall. We stowed an earthquake kit in the basement of our tiny house and, even prepandemic, cached boxes of N95 masks under the sink. In return, we’d spend a stupid amount of money on housing and tolerate a few hazards. ![]() The implicit bargain was that California would protect and deliver to her residents the earth’s own splendor. This was not just our relationship to California this was everyone here. But she was gorgeous, and she brought into our lives, through the natural world, all the treasure and magic we’d need. But really, we already had a bonus partner: California. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.Įarly in my two-writer marriage, my husband and I joked that we should add a silent third spouse who worked in venture capital or practiced corporate law.
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